50 Years of Women at Georgia Tech

By Ted Vigodsky

Atlanta, Georgia – For generations, Junior's Grill has been the place to meet, greet and eat on the Georgia Tech campus. As cashier and matriarch, Zoe Pamfilis has commanded a front-seat view of it all. When she hears we're preparing a story on the 50th anniversary of women at Tech, Pamfilis beckons to Mona Meddin - a math professor who's dropped by for some breakfast.

&#147Well, there are certainly more than there used to be, but there are not enough yet,&#148 says Dr. Meddin. &#147Women are still under-represented in careers in math and science and engineering. And they certainly can do it - I'm living proof that they can.&#148
&#147I have my PhD from Georgia Tech. I graduated in '95 with my degree in mathematics, and I work for O-Med' Educational Services. I run their academic support.&#148

Is it easier for young women to get into Tech now, we ask her - or are there still things to do, to level the playing field?

&#147Well, the great thing about Georgia Tech is, if your numbers are right you can get in - whether you are a woman or man, or black or white,&#148 she says. &#147So that's really a wonderful thing about Georgia Tech, because it's strictly by the numbers. If you can cut the mustard, it doesn't matter who you are. A question of leveling the playing field might be better addressed in high school and junior high school - where women are systematically told they can't do math, or if you're smart you're not going to get a husband or things of that nature.&#148

Professor Meddin was still a toddler when Shirley Clement Mewborn and Diane Michel entered Tech. It was the fall of 1953. The two would go on to make history, as the first women to graduate from Tech.

&#147I had thought that I wanted to be a basketball coach and a math teacher,&#148 says Mewborn - the first woman to major in electrical engineering and later, the first woman to head Tech's Alumni Association.
&#147[I] had one year at Western Carolina Teacher's College. My scholarship ran out. I was out of money. Tech offered a wonderful opportunity for education at an affordable price. I applied, was accepted, nothing to do but go!&#148

Mewborn found that she was up to the challenges Tech posed academically, and tried to set a high standard socially, as one of the school's first female students.

&#147I had a very strenuous schedule,&#148 she recalls. &#147It included calculus, physics, chemistry, drawing, English, welding and public speaking - all at the same time, my first quarter at Tech.&#148

Another notable woman on campus is Dr. Sue Rosser. She is Dean of the Ivan Allen School of Liberal Arts, the first woman to serve as the Dean of an academic school in Tech's 110-year history. Rosser is impressed by the efforts Tech has made, and continues to make, to attract women.
&#147When I was at the National Science Foundation in 1994-95, as Senior Program Officer for Women's Programs, Tech was always submitting grant applications for new, innovative programs - that would improve the lives of women who were already at Tech,&#148 she says, &#147both students and facultry, as well as new efforts to attract and retain women.&#148

Dean Rosser says when women enter these fields, they tend to bring to the table different life experiences compared to men - along with new questions, approaches and creativity.

&#147Women are very good team players and team builders,&#148 she says. &#147They tend to have a slightly more collaborative approach than men, who sometimes take a more competitive approach to solving problems.
These days, big science and big technology are team efforts, so these collaborative skills are extremely important.&#148

Shirley Mewborn says women entering Tech today have many more opportunities than she and Diane Michel had, half a century ago. But they also face more challenges.

&#147The more important thing is to strive for balance,&#148 she stresses. &#147The other thing is to be prepared to work hard. There's no free ride. Just because you're a woman doesn't gain you anything. You still have to do the job, you have to prove yourself; you have to, perhaps in some cases, go one step further. But you have to have the common sense to know when to do that, and when not to do that.&#148
&#147If women had not been admitted to Georgia Tech, society would have missed some wonderful opportunities - because we've had women in the field of aviation, we've had astronauts, women in architecture who've done some absolutely wonderful things. We've had women achieve remarkable success in the field of medicine and in business, and certainly in engineering. And I think it would be helpful for those women of today to acknowledge the fact that, by golly, these old gals made it. Look at what they did, and we can too!&#148

Half a century after women entered Tech, careers in the field of science and technology are still a challenge for women. Dean Rosser points out that fewer than 10-percent of full professors in science and engineering are women. And among top-notch institutions such as Tech, that percentage is more like four-percent.